The Evangelical Outpost has a good summary of the most recent events with a case in Florida involving a protracted legal battle over the life of Terry Schiavo.
Her feeding tube was removed yesterday and if doctor’s predictions are correct Terri will die around Easter.
The post looks at ethical issues. This case of ethical/medical/legal/political would be unlikely to occur in Canada because of laws governing the wishes of the patient and the next of kin.
What I found interesting was the discussion in the comment section.
It is one thing to discuss ethical, medical, legal and religious issues, but I didn’t see any discussion about the grief, anger and desperation of her parents, siblings, caregivers and her husband. There are social, emotional, spiritual and mental pain any family in this dilemma have to deal with. Many families, including my own have had to make the difficult decisions about treatment and and the prolonging of life or prolonging the act of dying.
It easier in our culture to keep detached and dissociated by keeping our discussion in the realm of law/politics than to focus and empathize on the deep rifts in this family and what they have gone through, and will go through this next week.
We live in a society afraid, even terrified, in denial of death and intellectualizing is a coping mechanism. We as a society, watching the terrible pain and grief played out publically abandon individual circumstances to media, and discussion to pro-life, euthanasia left/right/ and even economics.
Terri is a daughter, a wife, a sibling, and years of legal recourse and political opinion keep us from focusing or even acknowledging on our own deep fears about being in a similar situation.
Several thousand bulimic and anorexia patients die each year.
Or our lack of preparation should we be in Terri’s condition is a concern. We need to prepare written instructions, full disclosure of wishes to family and our GP’s.
Intellectualizing and rationalization can keep our concerns, focus and empathy distanced from the anguish of all the family, with the legal battles enabling polarizing of ’sides.’ God help us, there are individual cases and circumstances quietly decided by families with their medical teams on a daily basis all over the world.
The Karen Ann Quinlin and Nancy Beth Cruzan cases have also galvanized the US public since the 1970’s.
Will praying activists be there to comfort her devestated parents over the long time of adjustment, and for her husband who has made choices in his life since her collapse that have made it easier to publically villify him?
Update: President Bush will sign a bill into law paving the way for an appeal in federal court. (This bill is not an order to re-instate fedding)
Published 3 years, 8 months ago
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Excellent comments and questions.
Although I haven’t focused on it in my own comments, I do agree that we should be sensitive to the moral struggling and psychological pain felt by both her husband and her parents.
Policy wise, I think it best that governments change their policies to provide that if there is disagreement by family over a person’s wishes, and there is no written instructions by the patient, then governments should err on the side of caution and continue with feeding tubes. However, that isn’t how Florida’s law was then written and Terri’s husband seems to have complied with the law as it was at the time.
I do object to the imposition of reductionist vitalist philosophies on those of us who have differing opinions.
My own living will provides that feeding tubes are not to be used if I am determined to be in a persistent vegetative state.
Interesting. I was able to bring home my own wife from the hospital to die before “tubes” and such ever became an issue. However, last week I did ask my Pastor…did I do something wrong when I increased the dose of her pain medication the last few hours of her life? But, then…I put myself on the platform to be judged….and I second guess decisions that were tough. One was…”bringing my wife home away from the hospital”. She actually got better when she came home…then she declined. I am a Christian…but I was distraught when I saw in our bulletin rallying for support against this man…and making him a villain. Someone could have easily turned me into a villain…when I made the decision to bring my wife home. But the Doctor never argued….the hospital…the families..and of course church were always behind…
Does anyone believe this man made an easy decision? Can anyone walk in his shoes? I know another Man whose shoes I would not like to fill…and sometimes at this time of year I really can empathize with him….Jesus.
I don’t know what to say Mr. J, I am so very sorry for your loss. I doubt very much your wife would label you a villian.
What did your minister say?
Since Terri’s husband hasn’t been enough of a villian to get agendas pushed forward, conveniently the Florida judge is a villian in some circles. I read something his pastor said, and it was velvety condemnation, the kind that gives one a chill.
The big difference is that Michael Schiavo has had two children with another woman; denied simple antibiotics to his wife because of a yeast infection and had to forced in court; denied Terri having her teeth brushed until the loss of four teeth and being forced to court, has not spent one penny of the million dollars she was awarded on rehab for her, instead on legal expenses for himself. Who didn’t remember her “wish” to die until four years after she was brain-damaged.
We are not talking about a committed husband who has despaired. Or someone like the commenter above, who gave the best care of his wife that he could until he had to make a difficult choice and then agonized over it. This is a guy who said in the presence of hospital personnel “Isn’t the b— dead yet?”
Save your pity for her faithful parents and siblings.
I second Therese’s comments.
We are not talking here about removing a ventilator from a brain dead person. We are not talking about administering a lethal injection to a convicted criminal. We are talking about killing a women through dehydration and/or starvation. As far as can be determined, no effort has been made to see if she can be spoon fed but the fact that she can swallow her own saliva without choking is pretty significant. Her persistent vegetative state diagnosis is not well established, either.
I think that, as Christians, we have an obligation in doubtful cases to choose life. This is an extraordinarily doubtful case.
Alicia, how do we, as Chrisitians, choose life in this case? Are we to use political means to enforce our own opinions in the matter? What does it mean to choose life?
The President of the US signed a bill tonight.
Terri Schiavo is no longer under state jurisdiction and is now under federal jurisdiction and her feeding tube will be re-inserted.
If another family is in similar distress and conflict, perhaps they can receive intervention from congress and the senate also.
Therese, “save my pity…?”
I beg your pardon?
Therese, is pity something that is in short supply or is it something that increases with use?
Pity, like compassion and love, is limitless as long as you choose that.
It seems that you have type cast the husband as the villian based on hear-say. Whether she should continue to be tube fed aside, the reality is that she never regain consciousness and will remain like she is for the rest of her life. His choice to move on with his life is a natural, healthy and normal response.
If he truely had no concern for her and did not believe that removal of the feeding was what she wanted why would he have fought so long and spent so much money on doing what he believes is the correct thing.
Nature has an interesting article http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050321/full/050321-5.html
Is Judge Greer being paid off by Felos? Why hasn’t the court seen Michaels treatment of Terri as abusive and neglectful? WHy is michael not in Jail? He said he would take care of her for the rest of his life - he has NOT done that. He has refused medical care! This is ILLEGAL! Michael should be hauled off to jail and his rat attorney disbarred.
I see a profoundly fractured family, neurology as an infant science, an intensifying public outcry and an ugly polarized political undercurrent.
I was wrong about the federal appeals, the nuances of US law evaded me.
As people watch this family’s tragedies play out in the media and courts again, perhaps it will be an opportunity to sit down with their families and talk about and face with one the great taboos of our botoxed civilization.
You can forget trying to impose your closed-minded
religion on the rest of us. Your cause is
doomed, and rightfully so.
I am looking forward to the day when the rest of the
population realizes that x-tian fundamentalists
deserve to be ignored and/or laughed out of existence.
Keep your beliefs in imaginary beings to yourselves
and stop trying to spread your stupidity and
intolerance to other gullible nincompoops.